Gun court to serve more districts

Twenty months after the launch of Suffolk County's gun court, it has cut a backlog of firearms cases in some of the city's highest crime areas and is about to expand to three more neighborhoods, District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said yesterday.

"This is one initiative that is playing a role in the reduction of gun violence," Conley said in a telephone interview as he announced the gun court's plan to target gun cases in South Boston, East Boston, and Charlestown beginning Nov. 13. "It is accomplishing what we want, and that is moving these cases expeditiously through the court system and prioritizing them."

About 100 gun cases were brought last year in all of South Boston, East Boston, and Charlestown, Conley said, adding that the gun court is prepared to take on the additional workload without requiring more prosecutors or judges.

The busy gun session, which has been operating at the Boston Municipal Court since February 2006 and fast-tracking firearms and ammunition cases from Roxbury, Dorchester, the South End, and parts of Mattapan and downtown, is now resolving cases in less than six months - about half as long as they used to take, Conley said. In the gun court's first 18 months, it disposed of 370 cases, with a conviction rate of more than 85 percent, Conley said.

Dorchester and Roxbury were the initial focus of the gun court because they had more firearms cases than most counties in the state, Conley said.

In light of the program's success, Chief Justice Charles R. Johnson of the Boston Municipal Court recently proposed taking on cases from the three other areas. The gun court will also start taking cases earlier in the process, after a defendant has been arraigned, instead of waiting until a case is closer to trial. It's part of a strategy to move cases more quickly, officials said.

Johnson "has committed the resources and the judges to address the problem, and I think it's proven that he's lived up to that commitment," said Paul K. Leary, the first justice of Boston Municipal Court, who routinely presides over the gun court.

Leary says the number of gun cases he sees each day varies. One day this week, it was nine; on another day, it was three. "We're moving them," Leary said.

Conley said the gun court was created because of neighborhood complaints that people caught with guns were being released on bail, remaining on the streets while their cases languished in the courts.

The number of nonfatal shootings in Boston between Jan. 1 and Oct. 21 of this year was 284, compared with 319 during the same time last year, according to Boston police. The number of fatal shootings during that period remained the same at 44.

"My theory is the gun court is one of the reasons we're seeing a reduction in shootings in our city," Conley said. "It's not the sole reason, but in my mind, it is one of the contributing factors."